Calendar years have no particular significance in the political or electoral cycle — except when they do. Though the Conservatives won the majority they had been three times denied in May of 2011, they did not begin to govern as a majority until this year.

Indeed, the date can be fixed with precision. It was Jan. 26, a Thursday. Until that time the government had been preoccupied with leftover items from the minority years: the crime bills, the Wheat Board, the gun registry, and so on. On that day, Stephen Harper gave a speech in which he at last began to sketch out the broader agenda he had been at such pains to disavow until then.

This, it might be said, was the real Speech from the Throne (the one from the previous June being remembered mostly for a piece of performance art by an impossibly self-involved page), the occasion for the government to lay out before Canadians and their representatives “the unfinished business of the nation.” And so, naturally, it took place thousands of miles away, in Davos, Switzerland.

Even at that, it was pretty vague. A lot of talk about the aging of the population, and the challenges this presented, notably to social programs. “We’ve already taken steps to limit the growth of our health-care spending,” Harper noted, alluding to the previous month’s abrupt – or abruptly announced — decision to curb the growth in federal transfers to the provinces. Now, Harper said, “we must do the same for our retirement-income system.”

That got people’s attention, especially when, at a later press briefing, it was confirmed that, indeed, this included Old Age Security. But there was more: immigration reform (putting “our economic and labour-force needs” at the centre), free trade with Europe and India, a major push on pipelines (“we will make it a national priority to ensure we have the capacity to export our energy products”), a new science and technology policy.

They weren’t all new, or surprising. But it was the first time the prime minister had tied them together into a coherent whole, with a common rationale: facing a future with relatively fewer workers paying to look after relatively more elderly, Canada needed to rein in spending on the elderly, to put more people to work, and to get more output out of each worker — that is, to raise productivity.

And indeed, the speech set the template for the rest of the year. OAS was indeed reformed, at surprisingly little political cost (notwithstanding the government’s singular inability to explain the need for it in an understandable way — apparently Davos was a one-off). Immigration Minister Jason Kenney pushed through a series of changes that amounted to a top-to-bottom policy overhaul. Free trade talks with Europe are said to be nearing completion. If the Jenkins report on innovation policy was a disappointment, it was at least another item ticked off on the Davos agenda.

Only on the pipelines question, notably the Northern Gateway in British Columbia, did the government find itself stymied, a product of its over-reliance on bluster and bullying over arguments and facts. It is now reduced to the slim hope that the National Energy Board, which it had earlier sought to bring more firmly under its command, can come to its rescue, endorsing the project in terms so sweetly reasonable as to overcome the B.C. public’s fears. Good luck with that.

All in all, however, this was the year the Harper government finally found a sense of direction, after so many years of seemingly aimless tacking about (of which the Nexen decision was an unfortunate reminder). Alas, it was also the year in which it was confirmed that, when it came to its relationship with Parliament and observance of basic democratic norms, nothing had changed from the confrontational minority government days.

There had been some speculation after the election that, majority in hand, Harper might finally loosen up a little, allow his backbenchers a little more dignity. Not a bit of it. Indeed, of the three major controversies — scandals, if you like — that pursued the government through much of the year, two had their roots in the election itself.

The government’s refusal to give an honest accounting of the costs of the F-35, either to Parliament or the Parliamentary Budget Officer, was in fact one of the election’s major causes. The Auditor General’s report this spring not only exposed how grossly the government had understated the costs, but also how far out of control — literally — Defence procurement had become, though it was not until this month’s KPMG report that we finally got a full accounting.

Yet at year’s end, it’s still not entirely clear whether the government has learned anything. We may stick with the F-35. We may not. We may go to competitive bids. We may not.

Meanwhile, the robocalls scandal has slowly dragged on, a steady drip of voter complaints, revelations arising from Elections Canada’s continuing investigation, and court testimony. Nothing as yet indicates any senior Tories knew about or colluded in attempts to mislead or harass voters in the last days of the campaign, but neither does it seem plausible that it was all the work of a few overzealous kids. The calls are too many, in too many ridings, with too much sophistication required.

Last, there are the omnibus budget bills, I and II: the point at which the government’s emerging policy ambitions and continuing contempt for parliamentary democracy converge. I’ve said my fill about these earlier, so I’ll be brief here. When much of the government’s legislative agenda can be pushed through in a single bill, or two; when “debate” on these hydra-headed monstrosities is itself cut short by government fiat; when these arrive on top of the whole long train of abuses to which Parliament has already been subjected, starting under past governments but with conspicuous enthusiasm under the present – then the question for next year, and for years to come, is clear. It is whether we will still live under a parliamentary system of government, or something else.

A National Post original, Andrew Coyne's journalism career has also included positions with Maclean's, the Globe and Mail and the Southam newspaper chain. In addition, he has contributed to a wide range... read more of other publications including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, National Review, Time and Saturday Night. Coyne is also a long-time member of the CBC’s popular At Issue panel on The National.View author's profile